


Notes for an Exhibition

by fengirl88



Category: Man in an Orange Shirt (TV)
Genre: Chocolate Box Treat, Happy Ending, Inspired by Art, M/M, Queer History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 15:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13573911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: Entries from the exhibition catalogue forThomas March: A Retrospective, Tate Modern, 2011





	Notes for an Exhibition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MildredMost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/gifts).



**Raking Leaves. Oil on canvas, 1960.**

March’s partner, Michael Berryman, is seen at work in the garden of the cottage they shared for fifty years. The sleeves of his orange shirt, rolled up above the elbow, suggest the mildness of “that glorious autumn day”, as March later recalled it. In a rare image of his own artistic process, March leans against the cottage door, smiling as he sketches his lover. Painted soon after the two men moved in together, this was the first of a series of domestic scenes, defiantly recording the happiness of a life lived outside the law. (For other examples in this exhibition, see The Breakfast Table; Winter Evening; The Bath; Hanging Out The Sheets; Tea and Crumpets.)

Tate Modern

 

**“… that little tent of blue / That prisoners call the sky”. Hand-coloured engraving, 1998.**

One of March’s illustrations for a privately printed centenary edition of Oscar Wilde’s poem _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_. The Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885), under which Wilde was imprisoned, remained in force until 1967, when the Sexual Offences Act decriminalised private homosexual acts between men over 21 in England and Wales. Scotland would have to wait until 1980 for an equivalent change in the law, and Northern Ireland until 1982. 

Private collection

 

**Thomas March’s sketchbook, c. 1945**

Given to Michael Berryman by March’s mother, Sybil, this was the sketchbook that saved March’s life when the supply lorry he was travelling in was hit by enemy fire in Italy during the Second World War. The bloodstains on the cover have faded but the bullet-hole is plainly visible in this sketch of Berryman, drawn during March’s convalescence. March’s sketches and paintings as a war artist were the subject of an exhibition at IWM London in 2005, _Raising Morale: The Wartime Art of Thomas March_. 

Lent by Adam Berryman

 

**Three sketches: In The Studio; By The Fireside; Morning. Charcoal on cartridge paper, 1947.**

Drawn from memory during March’s imprisonment for gross indecency, these sketches recall happier times in his relationship with Michael Berryman. Apparently mundane objects – a richly patterned rug covering two indeterminate figures (In The Studio), a bundle of letters (By The Fireside), two wristwatches on a chest of drawers (Morning) – take on a coded significance here. Traces of Sybil March’s letter to her son can be seen on the reverse of Morning (“I write him letters in soft pencil on one side of cartridge paper so he can draw on the other,” she told Michael Berryman). 

Private collection

 

**La mort de Cléopâtre. Oil on canvas, 1957.**

The ten-year-old Robert Berryman looks on in fascination as Sibyl March, swathed in an Egyptian shawl, performs her death scene from _Antony and Cleopatra_ in the garden of her house in Cassis. Robert’s pose echoes that of the young Raleigh in John Everett Millais’ The Boyhood of Raleigh (1870), a piece of gentle mockery on March’s part that seems oddly prophetic in depicting this formative encounter between the retired actress and the future theatre director.

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseilles

 

**The Bath. Oil on canvas, 1961.**

Michael Berryman sits in a tin bath in front of the fire at the cottage, bending forward to wash the soap from his hair with a copper jug of water. The warmth of the firelight gives a cosiness to the scene, though it appears to be winter, judging by the darkness of the room and the time on the clock over the fireplace. “I had to work quickly,” March recalled. “Even with the fire it was actually bloody cold!” Later, he would celebrate the arrival of a proper bathroom at the cottage with a painting called Two Men in a Tub (current whereabouts unknown).

Private collection

 

**Flora and Matthew. Acrylic paint on canvas, 1970.**

Michael Berryman’s wife, Flora, is shown here with her second husband, Matthew Gresham, a housemaster at Woodforde School where Robert, the Berrymans’ son, was a pupil from 1955-63. According to Robert, March produced the joint portrait as a wedding gift for the couple, who married soon after the Berrymans’ divorce. The composition of this painting, which shows the couple off-duty in Gresham’s study at Woodforde, recalls March’s 1964 painting of himself and Michael, Tea and Crumpets. 

Lent by Robert Berryman

 

**In The Studio. Oil on canvas, 1987.**

March returned to his prison sketch forty years later, to produce an overt and unapologetic portrait of gay male love. What could only be hinted at in the earlier version is now explicit: the formerly indeterminate figures of the prison sketch are replaced by recognizable portraits of himself and Berryman, in a relaxed post-coital embrace. The painting is suffused with light and warmth, from the tones of the two men’s bodies to the glowing colours of the brightly patterned rugs and throws on the bed, giving the scene an air of celebration. 

Private collection

 

**Scrap Section 28 Protest. Photographer unknown, 1989.**

Taken at a rally in London, this photograph shows Thomas March, Michael Berryman and Robert Berryman protesting against the infamous Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. Robert’s placard, THERE’S NOTHING PRETEND ABOUT MY FAMILY, refers to the sentence forbidding local authorities “to promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. This legislation, which effectively prevented teachers in state-funded schools from discussing gay issues and same-sex relationships, was eventually repealed in 2000 in Scotland, and in 2003 in England and Wales.

Hall-Carpenter Archives

 

**Tea in Bed. Acrylic paint on canvas, 1995.**

In another of March’s affectionate scenes of everyday domesticity, he and Berryman, now both in their seventies, enjoy a leisurely morning cup of tea in their bedroom at the cottage, with minor interruptions from their two eager and curious dachshunds. Amongst the comfortable and familiar clutter of books, spectacles, glasses of water, pencils and a sketchpad, the two wristwatches side by side on the bedside table recall March’s earlier sketch Morning.

Private collection

 

**Photograph of Michael Berryman and Thomas March, 21 December 2005**

This photograph, taken by Adam Berryman, shows the couple on the occasion of their civil partnership, one of the first to be granted in the UK following the Civil Partnership Act 2004. 

_I never thought we’d have this. I never thought they’d really do it. And there’s so much more still that needs fixing, it’s not that we’ve won and everyone can go home now. But this means a lot, after 45 years of living together._ (Thomas March, interviewed on South East News, 21 December 2005)

Lent by Adam Berryman

 

**Michael and Charley. Charcoal on paper, 2008.**

This tender and intimate late sketch shows Michael Berryman dozing on the sofa at the cottage, with Charley, one of the couple’s rough-haired dachshunds, lying asleep at his feet. The pattern on the rug draped over Michael suggests it is the one from In The Studio. Although the lines of the sketch are less sharp and clear than in March’s earlier works, his skill in creating character – both human and canine – with a few deft touches is undiminished.

Private collection

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to Owl_by_Night for encouragement and many helpful suggestions.


End file.
